Hunting, Fishing, and Environmental Virtue: Reconnecting Sportsmanship and Conservation

Part Three: Problems for the Sportsman Thesis

60 PartThree There are several serious philosophical objections to the approach I have taken, which need to be addressed before the revised sportsman thesis is accepted. They will be the subject of Part Three. By answering these objections, I will develop a code for field sports, based upon the virtues already identified with alterations required to meet the objections. The first objection is one that occurs almost immediately to critics of field sports: aren’t the same virtues also developed by activities other than field sports? Answering this objection will require a deeper exploration of the particular recipe for field sports. The second objection attacks the use of “sport” in “sportsmanship.” It seeks to use the concept of sport against field sports, to show that they are elitist and, unlike “subsistence hunting and fishing,” not morally acceptable. Answering this objection will afford us the opportunity to establish the centrality of the environmental virtues in all varieties of hunting and fishing. Finally, codes of ethics related to the sportsman thesis have been criticized both for their selfserving nature and their lack of consistency. These points will require that a new code be articulated consistent with the view of field sports already developed. It is worth noting that these three objections are common to nearly all animal rights and welfare critiques of field sports. Once they are answered the disputes between defenders of field sports and their critics amount to a theoretical debate between various approaches to ethical thinking. I have maintained that virtue ethics provides an adequate basis for the sportsman thesis; this is my theoretical background. I have not engaged the theoretical foundations of other views because that is not the goal of this work. ProblemsfortheSportsmanThesis ...